Network communications system and method for worldwide web broadcasting

ABSTRACT

A system and method allow an Internet user to act as a broadcast session conductor by assembling audiovisual information in a multimedia document, and broadcasting that information to a predetermined group for simultaneous viewing. During the network broadcast, members of the predetermined group can interact with the Internet conductor using a standard telephone or other audio connection. The broadcast information may be used for such sessions as on-line training/teaching seminars, telemarketing, teleshopping and other multimedia events.

This is a Continuation of application Ser. No. 09/111,301 filed Jul. 7,1998 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,389,471. The entire disclosure of the priorapplication(s) is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of Invention

The invention relates to network communications, and more particularlyto a system which allows a user to prepare and broadcast informationover the Internet to an audience of individuals, simultaneously.

2. Description of Related Art

Today, most information on a network such as the Internet is accessed ina passive manner, from the standpoint of the information source. Thatis, a user at a personal computer typically accesses the Internetthrough a dial-up service provider, and uses browsing software to “pull”information from Internet servers for viewing. Although commercialutilities and services are available which “push” information from theserver side to subscribing users, they usually deliver the informationfor passive or off-line viewing.

In addition, most existing Internet access systems are designed only forone-to-one communications. That is, Internet users commonly communicatewith web sites and receive information directly from web servers on apurely one-to-one basis. Thus, new technology is desirable to expandInternet communication techniques beyond simple one-to-one, passivetypes of communication.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a system and method for network communicationswhich permit a network user such as an Internet user, acting as asession conductor, to broadcast in real time an interactive presentationto a predetermined group of users across the World Wide Web. The systemand method of the invention allow the session conductor to retrieveinformation from network databases or other sources in real time and usethat information to present a multimedia broadcast session. The sessionconductor directs the system to forward the multimedia session to thesession audience at a designated time. Members of the session audiencemay choose to follow the presentation passively or actively participatein the presentation through a multimedia bridge.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be described with reference to the following figures,in which like numerals refer to like elements, and wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a communications network adapted to broadcast informationaccording to the invention;

FIG. 2 shows a conductor terminal of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows a client terminal of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 shows components of a broadcast device; and

FIGS. 5 and 6 show flowcharts of a broadcast process according to theinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a network communication system 10according to the invention. The network communication system 10 is ingeneral a distributed, multiply linked system incorporating a variety ofcommunication interfaces and connections of varying bandwidth. Thesystem includes at least one conductor terminal 101, client terminals103 and 104, and a Broadcast World Wide Web Service (BWS) Center 100 ofwhich the major functions include the storage, formatting, scheduling,and transmission of a multimedia session to a desired audience of theclient terminals.

Conductor terminal 101 and client terminals 103 and 104 can, forinstance, be personal computers or workstations running under Windows,Unix or other commonly available operating systems. Client terminals 104can also be other devices such as a DirecTV™ receiver or a WebTV unit.The client terminals 103 and 104 are coupled, directly or indirectly, toa network 102. Network 102 may be the Internet, or privately subscribedintranets or other communications networks. The client terminal 103 maybe coupled to network 102 by conventional dial-up modem interfaces, forinstance TCP/IP/PPP or other protocols known in the art. Remote servers105 connected to network 102 over link 319 provide storage of and accessto databases containing multimedia information.

A user, acting as session conductor, logs onto and operates theconductor terminal 101, as shown in FIG. 4, to access and editmultimedia information for a session using a multimedia authoring tool306, such as the commercially available Macromedia Director software.The multimedia information to be used in a broadcast session may becreated locally and stored in multimedia database 309 or drawn from theremote servers 105 over network 102, or imported from floppy drives,compact disks (CD), or other portable storage. The multimediainformation may include text, graphical, video, audio or otherinformation according to MPEG (Motion Pictures Experts Group),QuickTime, ActiveDesk or other standards known in the art, in whichcontent may be connected by embedded hyperlinks for easy traversing. Asnoted, the multimedia information assembled for a broadcast session maybe physically stored in multimedia database 309 or, alternatively, theBWS center 100 may contain pointers in local storage 312 within localservers 307 to locations where the multimedia information pieces arestored, either in the multimedia database 309 or remote servers 105.

The BWS Center 100 is illustratively linked directly to the clientterminals 104 through a broadcast medium 310, which may be satellitetransmission, cable television (CATV), wireless CATV, terrestrialtelevision, ISDN, ADSL, fiber optic connections or any other medium thatcan reach multiple receivers simultaneously, preferably with highbandwidth. The BWS Center 100 is connected to network 102 over link 314,which can also be a conventional dial-up connection or a more robustdigital channel, such as a T1 or T3 line. The BWS Center 100 alsoconnects to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) 207 usingconventional telephone connections 316. The client terminals 103 are notconnected to BWS Center 100 directly, but rather to network 102 overconnections 320, which may also be conventional dial-up connections orthrough modem connections to the telephone network 207, Internet SourceProviders (ISP, not shown), and network 102, for example.

The client terminals 104, BWS Center 100, the conductor terminal 101,and the telephone operator stations 209 (but not client terminals 103)are all also illustratively coupled to the telephone network. It will beappreciated by persons skilled in the art that adaptations of thedistributed architecture of FIG. 1, as well as other configurations oftransmission links, will be possible.

The session conductor prepares a multimedia broadcast by using themultimedia authoring tool 306 to create, retrieve, or edit audio, videoand text information from the local servers 307 or remote servers 105.The resulting assembled multimedia information is stored in thepresentation server 312, to be retrieved and broadcast to the clientterminals 103 and 104 as part of a multimedia session at a later,specified time through the communication server 308. For the clientterminals 103, 104 which can only decode MPEG-2 bitstreams and do nothave HTML processing capabilities, e.g. DirecTV set-top boxes, thecommunication server 308 will transcode the presentation of HTML pagesinto MPEG-2 format and push the resulting MPEG-2 bitstreams to thebroadcast channels 310. For the client terminals 103, 104 which candirectly act on HTML, the communication server 308 will function as anetworking device, e.g. a router, that forwards the session informationtransparent to client terminal 103 through WAN interface 301 and toclient terminal 104 through broadcast channels 310. The log-on processof the conductor and the scheduling and transmission of a broadcastsession are controlled by the controller 303.

The client terminals 104 can receive the broadcast session directly fromBWS Center 100 at the time specified by the session conductor. At thespecified time, the session conductor logs on to the BWS Center 100through the conductor terminal 101 over link 318. The session conductorcommunicates commands over the network 102 to the BWS Center 100 totransmit or “push” the multimedia content to the group of clientterminals 103 and 104, which form the session audience. The BWS Center100 transmits the multimedia session to client terminals 104 directlyover broadcast channels 310, and to client terminals 103 through link314 to the network 102 and then through links 320. The client terminals103 and 104 may incorporate conventional television circuitry or areceiver capable of receiving a digital television signal. The BWSCenter 100 broadcasts both digital and analog signals, if both analogand digital receivers are present. The session audience receives theaudiovisual content of the transmitted session on their associatedterminals, and may also engage in audio interaction with the sessionconductor or an operator associated with the session conductor duringtransmission. Audio interaction may be by using streamed Real Audio orother known sound transmission techniques over network 102, or throughdirect telephone connection over telephone network 207. (Though notshown, users of client terminals 103 may also use a conventionaltelephone.)

FIG. 2 shows the conductor terminal 101 in more detail. The clientterminals 103 are configured similarly to the conductor terminal 101. Aninterface 222 receives signals from and transmits signals to the network102. The interface 222 is coupled to a conductor session terminal 201.The conductor session terminal 201 can also be a general purposecomputer such as a personal computer, a workstation, or any othercommunication device capable of interacting with the network 102,illustratively including keyboard 220 and mouse 223 to receivegraphically oriented input. The conductor session terminal 201 processesthe received multimedia information and displays it on the display 221.The conductor session terminal 201 also transmits commands and dataqueries to the network 102 and from there to the BWS Center 100. Theconductor session terminal 201 may also connect to the telephone network207 through the local exchange carrier 206.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary client terminal 104 in more detail. In theconfiguration illustrated in FIG. 3, the broadcast session is encoded inMPEG-2 format, for example. An interface 214 receives the broadcastsession signals. The interface 214 may be an antenna capable ofreceiving MPEG-2 signals (e.g., digital television signals broadcast byDirecTV™). The broadcast session signals are then sent to a receiver204, which converts the digital signal to an analog video signal, inturn sent to a display 215. The display 215 may be a television or VGAmonitor, for example. Alternatively, the digital signals may be useddirectly by a digital (HDTV or other) television.

The client terminal 104 includes a telephone 205 that is coupled overlink 322 to the local exchange carrier 206 and thence to the telephonenetwork 207. A person operating the client terminal 104 is also able toprovide interactive audio communication with the session conductor usingtelephone 205.

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of the BWS Center 100. The BWS Center100 includes a data network interface 301, a memory 302, an audio bridge304, a telephone network interface 305, a multimedia authoring tool 306,a multimedia on-demand database (MMOD) 309, a communication server 308and local storage 312. The various components of the BWS Center 100 areall coupled to a data bus 300 and controlled by a controller 303.

The data network interface 301 receives a request from the sessionconductor to initiate a broadcast session. The session conductor usesthe multimedia authoring tool 306 to create and edit multimediadocuments. The multimedia documents are initially stored in the memory302. Once the session conductor identifies the specific multimediadocuments to assemble and present, the identified multimedia documentsare loaded into the MMOD 309 which may be stored in local storage 312.The broadcast interface 308 broadcasts a data signal corresponding tothe session conductor's multimedia presentation, retrieved from MMOD309. If the telephone network interface 305 receives a request from thetelephone network 207 to establish an audio link, the audio bridge 304will forward a signal through the telephone network interface 305 to thetelephone network 207, instructing the telephone network 207 to directan audio signal to the specified broadcast receiver 204.

Because the information retrieved from the World Wide Web is generallyin Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), it may be necessary to convert theHTML to a format that is compatible with the broadcast receiver 204.Thus, if the broadcast receivers 204 operate in the MPEG-2 format, thecontroller 303 will direct the broadcast interface 308 to encode themultimedia documents constituting the broadcast in MPEG-2 format.

Returning to FIG. 1, the session conductor logs onto the network 102 viathe conductor session terminal 101 over link 318. The session conductoraccesses the BWS Center 100 via an Internet browsing package, such asNetscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, for example, andcreates or edits the remotely stored multimedia document using themultimedia authoring tool 306. The session conductor may access websitesof the network 102 such as multimedia databases contained in remoteservers 105 to download new material to the BWS Center 100, or draw frommultimedia databases provided in the BWS Center 100 or other sources forfurther source material.

To arrange a broadcast session, the session conductor specifies sessionparameters to the BWS Center 100. The session parameters includemultimedia document IDs and MDIDs for documents (or portions ofmultimedia documents) stored in the MMOD that are to be “pushed” to thesession audience during the broadcast session, and a delivery timeparameter (DT) indicating at what time the broadcast session is tocommence. The session parameters also include a participation list (PL)indicating which client terminals 103 and 104 will constitute thesession audience, and a required bandwidth (RB) for the broadcastsession.

The session conductor specifies the multimedia documents to present tothe session audience, and directs the BWS Center 100 to broadcast thespecified multimedia documents according to the MDIDs as the broadcastsession. At the desired time indicated by the DT variable, the BWSCenter 100 broadcasts the broadcast session to the broadcast receivers204 over links 310 and allows the client terminals 103 access to thebroadcast session over network 102. The session conductor's presentationmay include, for example, training/teaching seminars, telemarketing,teleshopping and other multimedia presentations contained in thetransmitted multimedia documents.

Only the client terminals 103 that are registered with the conductorterminal 101 specified in the participation list may access thebroadcast session over network 102. The session conductor or a broadcastservice assigns each client terminal 103 in the session audience apredetermined code, which may be delivered in advance of the session byemail or otherwise. Users at the client terminals 103 enter their codesto obtain access to the broadcast session, which must match thepredetermined code assigned by the conductor or the broadcast service.

During the broadcast session, the session conductor and the members ofthe session audience operating the client terminals 103 and 104 mayindividually interface with each other. Specifically, the members of thesession audience operating the client terminals 103 and 104 mayestablish an interactive data link with the conductor session terminal201. The interactive data link may include a “white board”, which allowsa hand-drawn sketch to be communicated via a real time video link, suchas by using a commercially available Connectix QuickCam. Further,members of the session audience operating the client terminals 103 and104 and the session conductor may enter private or public chat rooms,and exchange typed text messages.

The broadcast receivers 204 may establish an audio link with the sessionconductor and/or a panel of telephone operator stations 209 associatedwith the session conductor. To establish an audio link, users of thebroadcast receivers 204 dial a code on telephone 205, which forwards amessage to the BWS Center 100 requesting an audio link with the sessionconductor and/or the panel of telephone operator stations 209. Themessage is forwarded from the telephone 205 through the local exchangecarrier 206 to telephone network 207, and thence to BWS Center 100. Inresponse, the BWS Center 100 transmits a signal directing audioinformation communicated by the users of the broadcast receivers 204 toeither the session conductor's telephone 208 or the panel of telephoneoperator stations 209. Operators at the panel of telephone operatorstations 209 may take orders from the session audience for merchandisepresented by the session conductor or may answer questions regarding thepresentation, for example.

In FIG. 3, the client terminal 104 is shown with a broadcast receiver204 that receives a signal broadcast in the MPEG-2 format. In analternate embodiment, the broadcast receiver 204 has HTML processingcapability built in. In this case, the signal sent from the BWS Center100 would be in the HTML format, eliminating the need to encode theoutput of the MMOD 309 from HTML to MPEG-2 format.

Operation of an embodiment of the broadcast multimedia communicationssystem 100 is described with reference to the flow diagrams of FIGS. 5and 6.

In step 400, the controller 303 receives a request from the sessionconductor, via the data network interface 301, to initiate a broadcastsession and goes to step 405. In step 405, the controller 303 promptsthe session conductor to indicate whether to present multimediadocuments already stored in the memory 302 or local storage 312, orwhether to create new multimedia documents. If the session conductorwishes to present multimedia documents already stored in the memory 302,the controller goes to stop S425. In step 425, the controller 303prompts the conductor to identify the multimedia documents (MDIDs) inthe memory 302 that will be presented. In step 430, the controller 303loads the identified multimedia documents into the MMOD 309 and goes tostep 435.

If, in step 405, the session conductor indicates a wish to create orappend new multimedia documents, the controller 303 goes to step 410. Instep 410, the controller 303 permits the session conductor to accessvarious websites and databases linked to the network 102 and, in step415, directs the multimedia authoring tool 306 to retrieve audio, videoand/or text information specified by the conductor from the Internet tocreate multimedia documents. In step 420, the controller 303 stores themultimedia documents in the memory 302 and proceeds to step 425.

In step 435, the controller 303 prompts the session conductor to specifya session audience. The session conductor specifies the session audienceby entering the predetermined codes corresponding to the broadcastreceivers 204 that the session conductor wishes to receive the broadcastsession. The session conductor further specifies the session audience byentering into the participation list predetermined codes correspondingto the client terminals 103 that the session conductor wishes to haveaccess to the broadcast session, via network 102.

In step 440 (FIG. 6), the controller 303 directs the broadcast interface308 to broadcast a data signal corresponding to the session conductor'spresentation to the session audience. The controller 303 allows theclient terminals 103 to access the broadcast session if the logon codeentered by the operators at the client terminals 103 matches the codesspecified by the session conductor. The predetermined codes thatcorrespond to the broadcast receivers 204 of the session audienceindicates to the controller 303 whether each of the broadcast receivers204 have HTML processing capabilities. Since the data signal broadcastby the broadcast interface 308, corresponding to the broadcast session,is in HTML format, if the broadcast receivers 204 are notnext-generation receivers having that capability, the controller 303will direct the broadcast interface 308 to transcode the data signalfrom the HTML format into MPEG-2 format before transmission to thebroadcast receivers 204 of the session audience. However, if thebroadcast receivers 204 of the session audience are capable of receivingsuch data, then the controller 303 will direct the broadcast interface308 to directly transmit the HTML data signal.

In step 445, the controller 303 determines whether to establish an audiolink at step 445. If the session conductor or an operator on the panelof operator stations 209 sends a request to establish an audio link withone or more members of the session audience, or vice versa, thecontroller 303 goes to step 450 to establish an audio link. If thesession conductor or an operator on the panel of operator stations 209dials a predetermined code on their telephones, the controller 303 willreceive a request to establish an audio link with one or more members ofthe session audience. The controller 303 will then direct the audiobridge 304 to forward a signal through the telephone network interface305 to the telephone network 207, to direct the real-time audio signalto the specified members of the session audience. In step 450, thetelephone network 207 will forward the real-time audio signal throughthe local exchange carrier 206 to the telephone 205 of the specifiedmembers of the session audience. This procedure will occur in reverseorder if any of the members of the session audience wish to establish anaudio link with either the session conductor or the panel of operatorstation 209.

If, however, the controller 303 does not receive a request to establishan audio link at step 445, then the controller 303 proceeds directly tostep 455 where it determines whether to terminate the session broadcast.If the session conductor enters a command to terminate the sessionbroadcast, the controller 303 goes to step 460 and terminates thesession broadcast. If the session conductor has not entered a command toend the broadcast session, the controller 303 returns to step 440.

As shown in FIG. 4, the BWS Center 100 is preferably implemented on aprogrammed general purpose computer. However, as will be appreciated bypersons skilled in the art, the BWS Center 100 can also be implementedon a special purpose computer, a programmed microprocessor ormicrocontroller and peripheral integrated circuit elements, an ASIC orother integrated circuit, a hard wired electronic or logic circuit suchas a discrete element circuit, a programmable logic circuit such as aPLD, PLA or PAL, or the like. In general, any programmable machinecapable of implementing the flow charts shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B can beused to implement the BWS Center 100.

As shown in FIG. 3, the memory 302 is preferably implemented usingelectronic memory, such as static or dynamic RAM or flash memory.However, the memory 302 can also be implemented using other means suchas magnetic or other media.

While this invention has been described in conjunction with the specificembodiments outlined above, alternatives, modifications and variationswill be apparent to those skilled in the art. The invention isaccordingly intended to be limited only by the following claims.

1. A method for broadcasting information over a network, comprising:identifying, by a broadcast session conductor, a broadcast audience toreceive a broadcast session; determining and locating in real time,based on a profile of the broadcast audience, items to be broadcastduring the broadcast session that are located at different locations;collecting the items from their location to a central broadcast system,wherein the locations can include floppy or hard drive, websites, remoteserver or CDs; creating, by the broadcast session conductor, thebroadcast session for the identified broadcast audience based onaudiovisual information; and broadcasting the broadcast sessions in realtime for reception only by the identified broadcast audience over thenetwork or providing secured access to the broadcast audience for manualretrieval of the broadcast session.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereinthe step of creating the broadcast session comprises: retrievinginformation from an audiovisual database; creating a multimedia documentbased on the retrieved information; specifying a length of the broadcastsession; specifying a required bandwidth for the broadcast session;specifying a participation list; and saving the broadcast session in adatabase.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the multimedia document iscreated using a multimedia authoring tool.
 4. The method of claim 2,wherein the multimedia document includes at least two of text, video,and audio data.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the broadcast audienceis designated by providing members of the broadcast audience with acode, the code being entered at a terminal of each of the members toaccess the broadcast session.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein acontroller queries the terminal of each of the members to determine ifthe code is correct.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the broadcastsession is broadcast in MPEG-2 format.
 8. The method of claim 1, whereinthe broadcast session is broadcast in HTML format.
 9. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the broadcast session is broadcast using at least oneof satellite television, cable television, wireless cable television,and broadcast television.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprisingthe step of establishing an audio link between members of the broadcastaudience and the broadcast session conductor.
 11. The method of claim10, wherein the audio link communicates transaction information relatedto the broadcast session.
 12. The method of claim 5, wherein thebroadcast session is made available to predetermined terminals connectedto the network, the predetermined terminals being designated by thebroadcast session conductor specifying the code.
 13. The method of claim11, wherein users of the predetermined terminals and the broadcastsession conductor communicate using telephone stations, white boards andchat rooms.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein the network is theInternet.
 15. A system for broadcasting information over a network,comprising: a profile determining device that determines characteristicsof a broadcast audience; a locating and retrieval device for locatingand retrieving items in real time for assembly in a broadcast session,wherein a location can include floppy or hard drive, website, remoteserver or CDS; a database that stores broadcast sessions created by abroadcast session conductor, for an identified broadcast audience fromaudiovisual information; and a broadcast device that broadcasts thebroadcast sessions in real time for reception only by the identifiedbroadcast audience over the network, the broadcast audience beingidentified by the broadcast session conductor, before the broadcast. 16.The system of claim 15, wherein the broadcast session comprises: amultimedia document, the multimedia document including at least two ofaudio, video, and text data; a broadcast length; and a broadcastbandwidth.
 17. The system of claim 15, wherein the broadcast sessionaudience is designated by providing each member of the broadcast sessionaudience with a code, the code being entered at a terminal of a memberof the broadcast session audience to access the broadcast session. 18.The system of claim 15, wherein the broadcast session is broadcast inMPEG-2 format.
 19. The system of claim 15, wherein the broadcast sessionis broadcast in HTML format.
 20. The system of claim 15, furthercomprising a broadcast center, the broadcast center transmitting thebroadcast session by at least one of satellite television, cabletelevision, wireless cable television, and broadcast television.
 21. Thesystem of claim 15, further comprising an audio link, the audio linkconnecting members of the broadcast session audience and the broadcastsession conductor.
 22. The system of claim 21, wherein the audio linkcommunicates transaction information related to the session broadcast.23. The system of claim 17, wherein the broadcast session is madeavailable to predetermined terminals connected to the Internet, thepredetermined terminals designated by a broadcast session conductorspecifying the code.
 24. The method of claim 1, wherein the broadcastsession is at least one of narrowcast, multicast, switched connectionand encrypted transmission.
 25. The method of claim 1, wherein thebroadcast session and the audiovisual information are stored in andretrieved from at least one database.
 26. The method of claim 10,wherein the audio link is established via one or more of a telephonenetwork and a data network, audio communication received from the audiolink may be selectively broadcast as part of the broadcast session. 27.The method of claim 1, further comprising establishing a white boardspace as a communication link between one or more members of thebroadcast audience and a broadcast session conductor.